The development gap between high-income countries (HICs) and low-income countries (LICs) arose from several factors, including flooding, desertification, the slave trade, resource theft, terrorist attacks, and war. These events destroyed development progress, reduced countries' resources and revenues, and caused them to spend money on repairs, security, and conflict rather than development programs, thereby widening the gap between rich and poor nations over time.

1. The development gap is the difference, in terms of development,
between HICs and LICs
How did this come about
in the first place??

2. Flooding
This creates a gap between rich and poor
because it destroys all the development
made by an area so they have to start again.
And therefore the government has to spend
the money on repairs rather than developing.

3. Desertification
This makes the soil even worse than it is already
and this, over time makes the desert bigger and
then this process repeated will extend the desert.
Less stuff to sell and therefore you have less
money to develop.

4. Slave trade
The slave trade slowed if not stopped some
countries’ development because it took away all
the people that were of a working age and
therefore they had no one to do the manual labour
so can’t build things like hospitals and schools so
they can’t develop and they get left behind.

5. Resource stealing
This happened when many European
countries became greedy and forced people
to trade stuff such as oil and coal for a much
lower value so they could make a large profit.
This meant that these countries had less
money so they couldn’t afford to spend
money on developing.

6. Terrorist attack
This makes countries spend loads of money
on anti-terrorism programmes and improving
defence system and spending lots of money
on security for big events. This means that a
country doesn’t have any money to spend on
developing.

7. War
This stops countries developing because it
means they are spending money on buy weapons
and vehicles. War will stop all development
because the country will be focusing on ending
the war. The effects will be lasting as they have to
spend loads of money on rebuilding all the cities
destroyed by the fighting.